• Corpus ID: 59486293

Comparative perception and knowledge of smallholder farmers on climate change and variation ; case of kaka ( a ) and Bulu ( b ) tribes in Eastern Meyomessala sub-division of Cameroon

@inproceedings{Ngwe2018ComparativePA,
  title={Comparative perception and knowledge of smallholder farmers on climate change and variation ; case of kaka ( a ) and Bulu ( b ) tribes in Eastern Meyomessala sub-division of Cameroon},
  author={Ngo Ngwe and J Fomekong},
  year={2018}
}

• Ngo Ngwe, J. Fomekong
• Published 2018
• Economics

Agriculture is one of the main sources of livelihoods for vulnerable poor smallholders.1,2 Smallholders’ continue to face more challenges that impede agricultural productivity. Such challenges include poor infrastructure, poverty, poor policies and poor governance.3 Climate change is recently acknowledged as a major challenge to agriculture.3 Climate change causes negative impacts on agriculture, destabilizing smallholders’ livelihoods.4,5 Although, smallholders have been adapting their agriculture to the changing climate since time immemorial.6 They are still vulnerable to climate variability.7,8 There are fundamental differences between climate change and climate variability. Climate change constitute a shift in meteorological conditions that last for a long period of time usually centuries. Climate variability means deviations in the mean state of climate and inconsistencies (e.g., in occurrence of wind and precipitation extremes), on all temporal and spatial scales beyond those of individual weather events, including short-term fluctuations that happen from year to year.9 In this work, both definitions are used. The underline conception is that global climate change causes local scale impact and that it is not possible to treat variability separate from climate change.10 Perception are context and location specific due to heterogeneity in factors that influence them such as culture, education, gender, age, resource endowments and institutional factors.11 With a projected continued warming of the globe11 glaring challenges could be in store for smallholders.12 Agricultural improvement can be achieved if smallholders are targeted.13 As part of targeting smallholders and solutions for climate variability, local knowledge of farmers becomes very important to enhancing their adaptive capacity. Local knowledge is based on practice and assists farmers to make informed decisions about how to respond to environmental changes and how to improve the amount and quality of their yield.11,14 The validity of local knowledge has been shown by scientists through comparison with quantitative climate data analysis.15 Various recommendations have been proposed to enhance the adaptive capacities of farmers. Mainstreaming adaptations into national development processes is one such recommendation.11 Lack of mainstreaming often leaves the smallholders’ adaptive role in agriculture overlooked.16,17 Adaptations are of longer-term in nature.15 Coping strategies, on the other hand, consist of household practices used as short term measures when confronted with unexpected events such as droughts.15,17 Building on the local knowledge would foster adaptive capacity that is acceptable to farmers by promoting and supporting locally developed adaptations. Overall, there is consensus that local knowledge is part